5 ms·

Is it true about Pizza? :/

davidw 7y ago
Wondering the same thing myself. What toppings got imported into Italy from the US? Certainly not things like pineapple! Maybe things like prosciutto cotto (ham) or salamino piccante ("peperoni") ?
- jfim 7y ago
  Pineapple as a pizza topping is apparently a Canadian thing [0]. > Greek-Canadian Sam Panopoulos claimed that he created the first Hawaiian pizza at the Satellite Restaurant in Chatham, Ontario, Canada in 1962. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_pizza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_pizza
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- RandallBrown 7y ago
  Tomatoes. Not the US, but from the Americas.
  - davidw 7y ago
    But that was before "pizza" as such was even invented, so I don't think that's really what this article was about.
pazimzadeh 7y ago
Some people think that pizza was Marco Polo's best try to make some Chinese scallion pancakes upon returning to Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cong_you_bing#Chinese_legend_surrounding_the_invention_of_pizza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cong_you_bing#Chinese_legend_s... Apparently the argument against this is that pizza existed in the Mediterranean, which is not compatible with the idea that pizza came from New York.
- Dansvidania 7y ago
  I believe Pizza/Pita like flat-bread type foods have existed in the Mediterranean since ancient Greek times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pizza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pizza if one is to trust the historical information quoted on wikipedia, pizza was popular in Italy (Naples in particular) already in the 19th century, well before immigrants made it popular in the US. So I think "Pizza effect" is a bit of a misnomer
  - samatman 7y ago
    Not a misnomer at all. The point is that what Italians now consider pizza is influenced by the American adaptation of the basal dish. That's the whole point.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - Dansvidania 7y ago
      right, but as an Italian I tend to disagree :D
moron4hire 7y ago
I think it's really hard to say much of anything about the influence of different cultures on food, especially anything regarding flatbreads. Every culture has some form of flatbread. Every culture has figured out "we can put other foods in/on-top of this flatbread". They figured it out thousands of years ago. Once you have the basic mechanic figured out, do the exact inputs matter that much, especially when you consider how varied the inputs can be within a specific, arbitrary category? There is the common, bad-highschool-history meme of "(The Earl of Sandwich/his personal cook) invented the sandwich". Or, every culture has a tradition of picking up food with bread, for thousands of years, and it's not that big of a deal. A grilled cheese sandwich is just a Western European quesadilla! One of my favorite ways to get people to scoff at me is to call polenta "grits". Yes, yes, "different strain of corn". But honestly, there are so many other variations in polenta/grits preparations that the specific strain of corn is really a minor drop in the bucket, and mostly amounts to regional availability. I know folks who will go nutso-spendo over "shrimp on a bed of polenta" but think "shrimp and grits" is cheap-food.
- davidw 7y ago
  My wife is from the heartland of 'polenta' country in northern Italy, and it is absolutely "commoner food".
  - moron4hire 7y ago
    Yeah, I live in Northern VA. We have a lot more dollars than sense here. We also like to white-wash southern food. Here in the DC area, for how it's prepared in dishes, polenta is definitely "rich-person's grits".
    - davidw 7y ago
      You can combine polenta with something quite fancy, and that's not unheard of in Italy. But it's also something that was a staple for the poor.
- darkwater 7y ago
  Polenta was (still is?) a poor man dish in the past. People got pellagra by eating only polenta all the time (BTW just discovered English and Italian use the same word). Selling it as a fancy food is a really,really good marketing trick.

Wondering the same thing myself. What toppings got imported into Italy from the US? Certainly not things like pineapple! Maybe things like prosciutto cotto (ham) or salamino piccante ("peperoni") ?

jfim 7y ago
Pineapple as a pizza topping is apparently a Canadian thing [0]. > Greek-Canadian Sam Panopoulos claimed that he created the first Hawaiian pizza at the Satellite Restaurant in Chatham, Ontario, Canada in 1962. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_pizza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_pizza
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
RandallBrown 7y ago
Tomatoes. Not the US, but from the Americas.
- davidw 7y ago
  But that was before "pizza" as such was even invented, so I don't think that's really what this article was about.

pazimzadeh 7y ago

Some people think that pizza was Marco Polo's best try to make some Chinese scallion pancakes upon returning to Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cong_you_bing#Chinese_legend_surrounding_the_invention_of_pizza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cong_you_bing#Chinese_legend_s... Apparently the argument against this is that pizza existed in the Mediterranean, which is not compatible with the idea that pizza came from New York.

Dansvidania 7y ago
I believe Pizza/Pita like flat-bread type foods have existed in the Mediterranean since ancient Greek times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pizza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pizza if one is to trust the historical information quoted on wikipedia, pizza was popular in Italy (Naples in particular) already in the 19th century, well before immigrants made it popular in the US. So I think "Pizza effect" is a bit of a misnomer
- samatman 7y ago
  Not a misnomer at all. The point is that what Italians now consider pizza is influenced by the American adaptation of the basal dish. That's the whole point.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Dansvidania 7y ago
    right, but as an Italian I tend to disagree :D

moron4hire 7y ago

I think it's really hard to say much of anything about the influence of different cultures on food, especially anything regarding flatbreads. Every culture has some form of flatbread. Every culture has figured out "we can put other foods in/on-top of this flatbread". They figured it out thousands of years ago. Once you have the basic mechanic figured out, do the exact inputs matter that much, especially when you consider how varied the inputs can be within a specific, arbitrary category? There is the common, bad-highschool-history meme of "(The Earl of Sandwich/his personal cook) invented the sandwich". Or, every culture has a tradition of picking up food with bread, for thousands of years, and it's not that big of a deal. A grilled cheese sandwich is just a Western European quesadilla! One of my favorite ways to get people to scoff at me is to call polenta "grits". Yes, yes, "different strain of corn". But honestly, there are so many other variations in polenta/grits preparations that the specific strain of corn is really a minor drop in the bucket, and mostly amounts to regional availability. I know folks who will go nutso-spendo over "shrimp on a bed of polenta" but think "shrimp and grits" is cheap-food.

davidw 7y ago
My wife is from the heartland of 'polenta' country in northern Italy, and it is absolutely "commoner food".
- moron4hire 7y ago
  Yeah, I live in Northern VA. We have a lot more dollars than sense here. We also like to white-wash southern food. Here in the DC area, for how it's prepared in dishes, polenta is definitely "rich-person's grits".
  - davidw 7y ago
    You can combine polenta with something quite fancy, and that's not unheard of in Italy. But it's also something that was a staple for the poor.
darkwater 7y ago
Polenta was (still is?) a poor man dish in the past. People got pellagra by eating only polenta all the time (BTW just discovered English and Italian use the same word). Selling it as a fancy food is a really,really good marketing trick.